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Skullcrack City

Jeremy Robert Johnson (Goodreads Author)

4.06 · Rating details · 1,309 ratings · 177 reviews

Life as a corporate drone was killing S.P. Doyle, so he decided to bring down the whole corrupt system from the inside. But after discovering something monstrous in the bank's files, he was framed for murder and trapped inside a conspiracy beyond reason.

Now Doyle's doing his best to survive against a nightmare cabal of crooked conglomerates, DNA-doped mutants, drug-addled ...more

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Paperback, 344 pages

Published February 1st 2015 by Lazy Fascist Press

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· 1,309 ratings · 177 reviews

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Jun 22, 2015 Dan Schwent rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2015, bizarro

Corporate slave S.P. Doyle, whose best friends are his pet turtle and his Hex addiction, sees conspiracies everywhere linking his bank to some unspeakable evil. When he's framed for murder, his conspiracies don't seem so far fetched anymore...

First off, I really hate elevator pitches but this is Office Space meets Breaking Bad meets Cthulhu.

I've lost some of my bizarro sensitivity over the years but this one was pretty strange. Doyle takes the mind-warping drug Hex and soon finds himself involv ...more

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Sep 07, 2018 Sadie Hartmann rated it it was amazing

This morning I was in bed staring at the ceiling until I felt my eyes glaze over; my brain a flurry of activity: How in the hell do you write a review for a book like this?
I buddy read this with my best friend, Mindi (which means we just acknowledge we'll read a specific book around the same time. Haha! She devoured this one & I went meticulous with it). Mindi offered to write her review first so I could see where she went with it and now that I've read her review and a few others from some peop This morning I was in bed staring at the ceiling until I felt my eyes glaze over; my brain a flurry of activity: How in the hell do you write a review for a book like this?
I buddy read this with my best friend, Mindi (which means we just acknowledge we'll read a specific book around the same time. Haha! She devoured this one & I went meticulous with it). Mindi offered to write her review first so I could see where she went with it and now that I've read her review and a few others from some people I trust, I have what I want to say, sorted.
*cracking my knuckles and taking a deep breath* Let's do this.
I think the tendency here would be to make a lot of comparisons--Skullcrack City reminded me of *this* or this is a mash-up of this & that but Skullcrack City isn't really like anything else and Jeremy R Johnson has his own, peculiar voice so I'm going to try to avoid comparisons.
This book cannot be pigeonholed into any one genre or even three. If I was forced to shelve it under anything, I'd put it under "Bizzaro Fiction"/"Cyberpunk"/"Horror".
The first part of the book is unputdownable-I was immediately sucked into the protagonist's insane lifestyle. For several chapters Johnson demonstrates what he does best: Character-driven world building with decorative, hilarious, mind-blowing language. Line by line this is technicolor brilliance, I almost wanted to whip out my journal and write quotes down so I could use them to impress my friends with my fancy expletives (but I didn't because I was busy reading and I didn't want to kill the vibe).
After an event in the story, we enter into an entirely different narrative style and that same protagonist had suddenly grown on me in a way that wasn't there before. It was a complete shift in gears that was so jarring, at first I couldn't hang with it, what's different about Doyle? Why do I suddenly like him and I'm accepting this love interest thing with this newly introduced character, Dara? But then I remembered I met Doyle in extreme duress and in a drug-induced state of paranoia--this is Doyle, sober. There was a come-down here in the middle of the book and then just as things feel a little 'roomy' and 'normal' Johnson shifts gears and I'm off to the races-again. It's bananas and I loved it. It required a total abandonment of all my presumptions and anticipation--this is a ride and it was best if I just let go of the safety bar, put my hands in the air and enjoyed it.
Just because this book sounds fucked up and weird shouldn't turn you off--I can recommend this to literally anyone because I can easily build bridges from this story to anyone's pet-favorite genre (except maybe YA Fantasy-I got none of that showing up here). I think it would help to read his collection, Entropy in Bloom, first. Just to dip your toe in Johnson's unique brand of weird and you'd get an introduction to the League of Zeroes, which goes deeper in Skullcrack City-I enjoyed that immensely and I was glad I already knew about 'Body Mods".
Finally, This is your brain *shows egg* this is your brain on drugs *cracks egg into a hot pan* this is your brain on Jeremy R Johnson *slides egg into a VitaMix blender on level 10*
Drinks it. ...more

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Sep 04, 2018 Mindi rated it it was amazing

Earlier this year my friend Sadie read Entropy in Bloom due to a recommendation from our other friend Emily, but also because the cover spoke to her. Sadie has taught me to really appreciate covers, and that one is fantastic. Once she finished she told me I absolutely needed to read it, and of course she was right. Thus, a new favorite author was added to our lists. Suddenly, we needed all of his published works, like yesterday. So we both bought Skullcrack City and planned a buddy read.

I'm abso ...more

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Aug 25, 2018 Sjgomzi rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-list-2018

A fun futuristic action romp that takes you through one outrageous set piece after another. A sort of Island Of Dr Moreau meets The Matrix as written by William Gibson, only much much cooler! I could not possibly begin to explain all the different elements that make up this novel-so many gonzo ideas that should never come together and work as a whole, yet Johnson somehow make it all work, and work brilliantly. So many genres represented here, from science fiction to horror, to cyberpunk. There’s ...more

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May 17, 2016 Danger rated it it was amazing

Skullcrack City is a four-course meal of a novel. Rife with humor, horror, action, and an imagination so unrivaled, I’m surprised my brain didn’t turn to liquid and leak out my ears.

Seamlessly stitched together from a bunch of disparate genres, this is a Frankenstein’s monster of a book that doesn’t hesitate to attack the villagers from every angle. Bizarro, crime, horror, humor: the writing employs several different genre-narrative techniques at once that somehow gel into a cohesive whole.

Now t ...more

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May 03, 2015 Keith rated it really liked it

This was loaned to me with really high praise, and unlike usual when a book is loaned to me with really high praise, I was freakin' pumped and ready to ride the ride. The opening did not disappoint -- Johnson's prose is spare for the most part, and lets loose with sci-fi ferocity as needed.

Plot-wise, this feels like three separate books, and I had different levels of engagement with each part. (I won't get spoiler-y here, but if that already feels like more than you want to know, feel free to ba ...more

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Dec 08, 2015 Brian Keene rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-in-2015

Easily Johnson's best work yet. Beautiful, sly prose and a story that transcends genre labels (science-fiction, bizarro, crime, etc). Loved it! ...more

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Oct 09, 2019 William rated it really liked it

Skullcrack City was a VERY nice surprise. I nearly DNF'd @10% it due to the "hipster" type narrative. I spent two years on my last job listening to hipster bullshit, and it almost drove me crazy. I stuck with it, and realized there was more than just a fire hose blast of pop culture and pseudo science references, as I fully expected. There was actually a story here, and it was damn good! Not only that, but the narrative actually grew on me, and I actually wound up really liking the protagonists! ...more

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Feb 05, 2016 Bill rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Jeremy Robert Johnson puts together one crazy mo-fo in this sci-fi/bizarro/fuck-knows-what-else mash-up. A drug fueled psycho-delic dick breaking dream world of corporate espionage. Killer jacked-up mutant-mouthed Popeye-jawed gorilla-armed man-things. Reality teetering on the precipice of an endless void and a turtle named Deckard that silently scorns while Shenanigans jerks it raw in a Hex addled fugue. Solid 4+ Stars!

This is some serious cosmic serendipity manifested consciousness shit.

Inde ...more

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Apr 05, 2015 Benoit Lelièvre rated it really liked it

I'm very aware that SKULLCRACK CITY was written (in part) to challenge the notion of description, but I'll do my best: It's like a proto-cyberpunk, full-blown paranoid Philip K. Dick was inspired by conspiracy theories discussed on The Joe Roan Experience if Joe, Brian and CoCo Diaz were stoned out of their mind on mushrooms. Does that give you a good idea of what SKULLCRACK CITY is? No? I tried my best.

The facts that this novel 1) exists 2) has been published and 3) is actually good, are very s ...more

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May 16, 2016 Still rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: Science-Fiction/Horror Thriller enthusiasts

Recommended to Still by: various Goodreads friends

Outstanding gonzo science-fiction/horror novel which dances to an apocalypse-o number of brain eating mutants, drug enthusiasts taking it all the way to the maximum utmost edge of oblivion and beyond.

I was amazed by the author’s ability to juggle elements right out of Edward Abbey’s THE MONKEY WRENCH GANG, Robert Shea + Robert Anton Wilson’s THE ILLUMINATUS trilogy, elements of William S. Burroughs’ THE SOFT MACHINE and NAKED LUNCH and “your favorite Philip K. Dick story or novel here”.

It’s at t ...more

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Jan 23, 2017 Frank rated it liked it

I picked up Skullcrack City by Jeremy Robert Johnson because it had stead buzz for over a year and also wound up winning the Wonderland Book of the Year award (The top honor in the Bizarro fiction genre.) I understand why this book is so highly regarded. It is a thriller, a noir, a medical drama, a cyberpunk junkie crime story and more. It is all masterfully orchestrated into a single book by the authors gifted hands.

Skullcrack City is not the type of book I would normally seek out. As I stated ...more

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Feb 09, 2015 Rodney rated it it was amazing

Shelves: lazy-fascist, paperbacks-already-read, all-time-favorites, best-read-in-2015

Since I lack the cognitive ability to adequately review this book, I will say this: I wish I was as cool as this book...I wish everyone I know would read this book.
Enough wishes, I have made my point, I hope.

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Sep 22, 2015 Nobody rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

I still have PTSD from the day I drank three pots of coffee and read this in one sitting.

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Feb 09, 2015 Hatchet Mouth rated it it was amazing

Jeremy Robert Johnson is a Disinfo agent. He wants us all to accept that the world of the Vakhtang, Face-rec masks, the mission, primates with expanding jaws, super-stimulant Hex, scarab beetles that pierce chests in order to remove GPS trackers in the afterlife, Buddy with his brain in a box is just a work of fiction. So I will write a review about this work of fiction and proceed as if it's something other than the stone cold, hard won truth of our shambling Frankenstein's Monster we call Real Jeremy Robert Johnson is a Disinfo agent. He wants us all to accept that the world of the Vakhtang, Face-rec masks, the mission, primates with expanding jaws, super-stimulant Hex, scarab beetles that pierce chests in order to remove GPS trackers in the afterlife, Buddy with his brain in a box is just a work of fiction. So I will write a review about this work of fiction and proceed as if it's something other than the stone cold, hard won truth of our shambling Frankenstein's Monster we call Reality.

At one time asleep, S.P. Doyle is snapped to the waking trance of a powerful street drug known as 'Hex', named such because it ruins everything. This black market cabinet of curiosities creates ghoulish side effects for users, including tardive dyskinesia, xerostomia, severe genital engorgement, double chronic masturbation (chronic chronic), tachycardia, arrhythmia, hypertension, hyperreflexia, more masturbation, eidetic imagery and hallucination of canis lupus (i.e. 'There's a giant fucking wolf behind me, isn't there? Bullshit, I just heard him growl! Is he still behind me!?') In the event that too much is ingested at once, the eyes liquefy.

Disenfranchised at work, Doyle decides to expose the crooked, unethical practices of his employers and finds the stakes in his drug fueled crusade continuously raised. FUCK IT! WHY NOT? becomes his mantra as he ventures farther out on the cusp of absolute existential ruin. He meets his match with super-primates with ever expanding mandibles and is rescued in the nick of time from becoming the conduit of a clandestine endgame courtesy of the Vakhtang. After he is purged by 'debugging' scarabs, he learns to navigate an entire new chessboard as the Vakhtang put Doyle's own mother into play to lure him out of hiding. He is befriended by covert paragons of virtue Ms. A and Dara, who have their own mantra that outweighs Doyle's 'FUCK IT, WHY NOT': They ruin everything. And after coming to know Dara, after having his mother and pet turtle threatened, he cannot let them ruin any more.

Jeremy Robert Johnson juggles a panoply of characters here from the nihilistic-but-hopeful Superfriend team of Doyle, Dara and Ms. A to a conspiracy theorist who actually has the forethought to make a 3-D printer using a 3-D printer when they are outlawed in this bleak future and a Nazi war criminal who has sidestepped punishment due to his standing with the Vakhtang and his agreement with our government as part of Operation Paperclip. We even see shout outs to characters from Johnson's previous works through the mainline of Eraserhead Press with Buddy from League of Zeroes, whose actions late in the book actually gave me that 'fuck yeah' feeling where I had to throw my hands in the air and high five someone who wasn't there.

I used to loathe five year cycles of anticipation for new projects from my favorites, be they musicians such as Tool or NIN or authors such as Johnson or Clive Barker. Now, I realize the wait is a fair trade off in order for us to enjoy such masterpieces as Skullcrack City, Everville, 10,000 Days and The Fragile. Yes, Bizarro has indeed found its Everville while refreshingly devoid of Lix. Also, Johnson's favorite word must be ovipositor along with anything else that falls between the squiggly lines of parasitology and pharmacology. Skullcrack City is an excursion that begins with cryptopolitical maneuvering and ends up a Body Horror Beowulf scribbled in rolling papers recycled from a love letter to Fatalism.

Jeremy Robert Johnson always knows just when to bounce, be it dialogue, narrative or symbolism. You will not be disappointed, unless it's just over your head.

If you would like to hear him answer for his uncanny child in interview format, feel free to peruse the one I conducted with him here: http://jeremy-maddux-9.podomatic.com/...
...more

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Feb 22, 2015 David Agranoff rated it it was amazing

Shelves: bizarro, end-of-the-world-epic, modern-horror, horror-masterpiece, monsters, dark-humor, weird-crime, sci-fi-horror, portland-authors

Let me get this out of the way. I am bias as hell about this book. When I first moved to Portland I lived a few blocks away from Jeremy. Even when I moved to a different neighborhood it was along the same Powell ave. and I often saw Jeremy out for run. So I root for the guy. Look we are close to the same age and got into horror and punk rock in similar ways in different small towns in different states. I consider watching Prince of Darkness on the big screen at the Lovecraft fest with him to be Let me get this out of the way. I am bias as hell about this book. When I first moved to Portland I lived a few blocks away from Jeremy. Even when I moved to a different neighborhood it was along the same Powell ave. and I often saw Jeremy out for run. So I root for the guy. Look we are close to the same age and got into horror and punk rock in similar ways in different small towns in different states. I consider watching Prince of Darkness on the big screen at the Lovecraft fest with him to be a bonding experience.

All that said I think he is an amazing writer with far too few releases to his name. That makes each one from his two short story collections (We Live Inside you & Angeldust Apocalypse) and his amazing Bram Stoker nominated Siren Promised (A novel he co-wrote with the artist Alan Clark) So special. In all the time I have known JRJ he had hinted at the novel in progress Skullcrack city. The plot he explained was so weird and spit out in motor mouth fashion that I asked about every time I saw him from bizarrocon to running into him at supercuts where the hell is it?

It was worth the wait. I am biased sure but I take my role as critic seriously. I have given a one-star review to a friend before. So believe me when I say this is a hybrid dark bizarro science fiction horror freak out a masterpiece. I do not say this lightly, and I mean it. JRJ has really crafted something special here. It is weird, really weird but not in the Dildo joke way a lot of bizarro stuff tends to do. Jeremy is a great writer with precise prose that doesn’t make for a quick read because you don’t want to miss anything.

This book is like nothing else you have ever read but everyone loves a comparison, right? JRJ wears his influences on his sleeve but not to the crutch level. If you forced me to I would say it felt like a way weirder take on Carpenter’s They Live if William Burroughs and Clive Barker worked on the script and Cronenberg directed.

The story of SP Doyle a weirdo turn corporate who accidentally develops a career working at a bank. He is overseeing loans and getting a behind the scenes look at the corporate world. The corruption is one thing, but Doyle is corrupted himself. He has a habit that involves an experimental drug called Hex. It makes him feel powerful and at the same time opens another reality. Once there that is when the DNA-doped mutants, drug-addled freak show celebs, experimental surgeons, depraved doomsday cults, and drug freak-outs get going.

Chapter 20 is the best chapter in the novel, and for whatever reason, everything from that point was like a spinal tap amp turned to 11. Skullcrack City started to make my ears bleed and I loved it. This book is political but not like a leaflet. It is funny but doesn’t descend into a parody of itself. It is well written and well told. I would be super surprised if it was not top of my list of reads for the year when 2015 is over.

Now Jeremy…Skullcrack City is all that and a bag of chocolate chips. I am here-by telling all fans of weird, horror and Science Fiction to read it. Don’t make us wait this long for the next one. ...more

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Sep 07, 2018 Levi Walls rated it really liked it

4.5 stars!!Loved it!

Every Goodreads update I show had a 😲 or a 😂 in it. I leave you with my favorite thought since saying anything about the book is a spoiler and you can't describe it anyway. Biiiitch read it and you'll see what I mean 😜

This shit is bananas! If you take Fight Club's edge and social commentary and mix that with the mind bending "what the shit?" of The Matrix, and then mix that with Game of Thrones and shit, theeeeen you might have an idea of what the fuck is going on right now. ...more

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Aug 17, 2015 Marvin rated it really liked it

Shelves: bizarro

Skullcrack City by Jeremy Robert Johnson is one of the wildest books I have read in a while and if it tends to run away from itself occasionally due to the wildly fantastic and manic ideas, it is still a lot of fun for your brain. The influences in this novel are many; I saw a little Hunter S. Thompson having lunch with William S. Burroughs due to the beginning with the obsession on drug-induced paranoia, lots of Phillip K. Dick, some clear body horror a la David Cronenberg...I think I even saw Skullcrack City by Jeremy Robert Johnson is one of the wildest books I have read in a while and if it tends to run away from itself occasionally due to the wildly fantastic and manic ideas, it is still a lot of fun for your brain. The influences in this novel are many; I saw a little Hunter S. Thompson having lunch with William S. Burroughs due to the beginning with the obsession on drug-induced paranoia, lots of Phillip K. Dick, some clear body horror a la David Cronenberg...I think I even saw David Wong peeking to see who died at the end. But as any quality writing it is not so much who are the influences as what was done with all of it.

The strength in the novel is how everything comes together in a plot with many turns and perhaps too many characters. S. P Doyle (S. P Somtow and T. C. Boyle's illegitimate son? Just kidding.)is a banker who thinks he has a way to get wealthy and screw with the banking industry at the same time. Fueled by a rather vicious drug called Hex, he unwittingly uncovers something so big that he and others may be killed over it. His drug fueled hallucinations are suddenly unveiled as being very real and propels him into a battle between extra-dimensional creatures, very mad scientists, and a technology that only exists in your worst nightmares.

The fun is in not knowing where all this leads. But before it is over Doyle is questioning reality, his purpose in life, and falling madly in love. Doyle is sort of a stupid selfish person and it is to the author's credit that we stick with him through all his greedy idiocy. We end up wanting to see what he is really made out of in more ways than one. But the fun in Skullcrack City lies in the writing. Experimental at times, pulpish in a Phillip K. Dick sort of way at other times and always going at the speed of light. it is always fun to read. As mentioned at the beginning, it becomes a little too wild at points and runs into the risk of losing the reader. Yet most will enjoy the craziness provided you are not too squeamish. Body horror is a major factor here.

Skullcrack City spans a few genres. It is science fiction, transgressive psychedelica. horror, and always Bizarro. It will appeal to the more adventurous fans of all those genres. It will definitely be one of your strangest reads in 2015. An unique experience, It deserves to be read, enjoyed, and admired. ...more

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Feb 21, 2017 Jason rated it it was amazing

Shelves: e-books, read-2017

4.5 Stars

Skullcrack City by Jeremy Robert Johnson is an awesome example of how Damn good and how really fun the bizzaro fiction genre can be. It is rare that one book wins me as an instant fan, but Skullcrack City did that for me. I will seek out the rest of Johnson's works in the near future.

This is a drug addled action fest filled with insane science fiction, horror, and fantasy elements. This book will definitely appeal to those like me that worship John Dies at the End. Hex is the drug in ...more

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Oct 17, 2015 Hakim rated it it was amazing

Shelves: weird, splendicity

In many ways, Skullcrack City reminds me of this.

description

"Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where? Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do? Eleven. Exactly. One louder."
- Nigel Tufnel (This is Spinal Tap)

This is how I feel about this book. Having read an ...more

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Feb 10, 2015 Tyler Spragg rated it it was amazing

Holy shit. I can't talk about most of the book without feeling I've ruined some portion of the ride.

S.P. Doyle is a bank employee, using a powerful drug called Hex to hopefully aid a current investigation. In many ways, it seems the drugs have the upper hand. Shortly after his descent back into the darkness of Hex, Doyle makes a ballsy move at work, and then things get really weird.

Jeremy Robert Johnson has created a story that takes off at an insane speed, and in directions you couldn't believe ...more

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May 24, 2017 Jonathan Raab rated it it was amazing

This book made my brain explode. Corporate conspiracies, cult street gangs, and competing cosmic conspiracies. READ IT

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Dec 23, 2018 G rated it did not like it

Dnf.
Pressed on for about a third of it. Ohh the drudgery.
This book has put me off reading. I haven't been able to read for about two months now.
Not my thing. ...more

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May 20, 2017 David rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: JRJ fans

Shelves: horror, science-fiction, bizarro

It's been five years since I read We Live Inside You, JRJ's second collection of short stories. I'd forgotten how much he can get under your skin—I won't go any further with that metaphor. He has this wonderful ability to get you to care about his characters (with exceptions of course), be silent witness to their suffering, and re-assure them that they're still human no matter what.

One could say that Skullcrack City is an outgrowth of "The League of Zeroes," the opening short story in JRJ's fir It's been five years since I read We Live Inside You, JRJ's second collection of short stories. I'd forgotten how much he can get under your skin—I won't go any further with that metaphor. He has this wonderful ability to get you to care about his characters (with exceptions of course), be silent witness to their suffering, and re-assure them that they're still human no matter what.

One could say that Skullcrack City is an outgrowth of "The League of Zeroes," the opening short story in JRJ's first short story collection, Angel Dust Apocalypse. But while the body modification elements of "The League of Zeroes" factor into Skullcrack City (it's not a novel for the squeamish), the novel is so much bigger. "The League of Zeroes" is actually the origin story for Buddy the Brain, a minor character in the novel—the two doctors from the novel appear in a limited fashion in the short story.

JRJ's writing style shifts fluidly in Skullcrack City as the protagonist, S.P. Doyle, changes. The Doyle we meet in the Prologue struck me as sinister. He hardly seemed like the guy we were supposed to be rooting for. But then the story proper starts and we meet the Hex-addicted Doyle. The guy is a total mess, spiraling out of control with paranoid fantasies, and it shows up in the narrative. You're not sure what's real and what's hallucination as one sentence runs head on into the next. And just when you think he can't go any further, he crashes as his paranoid fears are confirmed. But we're only a third of the way through the book.

In the middle third, the Hex is purged from his system, but Doyle struggles like a newly hatched chick as his body returns to normal and he awkwardly tries to grow into the would-be hero role. The narrative slows down to a manageable pace with periods of introspection, letting the reader catch their breath. But it's also punctuated by episodes of violence to prevent reader complacency and prod Doyle out of episodes of navel gazing.

In the final third, Doyle is forced to adapt or die. His struggle to survive forces him to shed the awkward persona and stand for something. As certainty of purpose kicks in, a calm settles over Doyle. There's a sense of purpose now. As the world teeters on the edge of insanity and terrible monstrosities, it is Doyle who's now the rational one. We recognize the guy from the Prologue as the story has come full circle.

While this is standalone novel that eliminates any chance of sequels, I'd still like to make a request for more JRJ novels. Please. ...more

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Apr 11, 2016 GD rated it liked it

Shelves: 2016

FUCK! I'd written like two pages about this book and it just got magically deleted before I could send it. It happens to me on Goodreads about once a year for some reason. Anyway, super super weird, nihilistic book, plot ebbs and flows too much, the writing a little too wink wink nudge nudge for me, but the ending is one of the best I can remember reading in the past few years, totally, TOTALLY fucking dark. And lots of cool lines:

"No one chooses to become a banker. It just happens, like cancer, FUCK! I'd written like two pages about this book and it just got magically deleted before I could send it. It happens to me on Goodreads about once a year for some reason. Anyway, super super weird, nihilistic book, plot ebbs and flows too much, the writing a little too wink wink nudge nudge for me, but the ending is one of the best I can remember reading in the past few years, totally, TOTALLY fucking dark. And lots of cool lines:

"No one chooses to become a banker. It just happens, like cancer, and then you try to live with it for as long as you can."

Describing the effects of a fictional drug: "After that you’re swimming in speed-brain momentum and there’s this inescapable sensation of a presence being with you. Some people describe it as a black wolf. It’s a weight on your left shoulder, persistent in the same way heavy indica will magnetize you to a couch. And that presence, somehow, is watching."

"In my twenties, slumming down here had a fun edge to it. That kind of edge gets sanded right the fuck off the first time someone puts a gun to your head and says, 'Your wallet. Now. No joke.'"

“And his dick looks like a hot dog that got hit with a sledgehammer and sewn back together by a blind lady.”

"Nope—FUCKED. On my way to a pig-roasting bunk party at maximum security overflow, teeth punched out, Aryan rape squads trying to see who can prolapse my colon first."

"The skyscraper-drop sound of all of his bones breaking at once echoed through the warehouse."

"Picture a naked man coated in lard and trying to pull himself up a black silk rope. Now imagine that man has had all of his arm muscles replaced with pudding. And then cut off his lard-laced hands and grease the bloody stumps. Now you’ve arrived, metaphorically at least, at the idea of Dr. Shinori’s English skills. (Which, still, by far, trumped my Japanese language skills, but that’s beside the point.)"

"There’s no gateway drug if you try all of them at once."

"But until the moment I opened my eyes there in Dr. Tikoshi’s lab, as far as I’m concerned, I was fucking dead. It was so nice. And then, of course, I woke up." ...more

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Sep 21, 2015 David Keaton rated it it was amazing

Killer voice. Infectious energy. Subversive humor. Anger slash bemusement. Dozens of lines are unforgettable. All this and a bag of chips. The freaky dead-end banker stuff reads like if The Pale King was actually exciting. Essentially a crash-course in contemporary genre-smashing, as the elements of traditional storytelling, character, conflict, dialogue, plot, and mood - with an extra dose of weird and a hard-R Phil Dick sensibility - are also effective enough to push it into instant classic te ...more

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Mar 25, 2015 Félix rated it really liked it

Well, I liked it very much, just not as much as I expected. It seems difficult to mantain such a campaign of shock and awe as the first 100 pages through the novel lenght, or maybe some of the novelty of his short fiction gets lost here in standard urban fantasy plot devices (with some punk edges an twists for sure).

Anyway: frantic and highly recommended.

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Jun 22, 2015 Lancer rated it it was amazing

Shelves: sir-lancer-s-recommendations

This was fantastic. Finished in 2.5 days which for me is very fast. I really don't even know how to describe this work. Its like sci-fi/speculative fiction but with some ideas that could have been conceived during an acid trip. I could not put this down. I was excited to read this and was not let down at all. Five Stars. ...more

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Sep 30, 2017 Bill rated it did not like it

Shelves: dnf

Not my thing. Did enjoy the couple of laughs so far but I'm not into the whole Naked Lunch vibe. ...more

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Aug 30, 2019 Alan rated it it was ok

I got this book because it was supposed to be in a similar vein as John Dies at the End, and was even endorsed by David Wong. For the first 2/3 or so, it felt like that kind of book. although the writing paled in comparison, and while it had occasional LOL moments, the humor was more often mildly amusing than outright hilarious. Unfortunately, in roughly the last third of the book, the story took a major turn towards being seriously, fairly nihilistically, depressing, almost feeling like two dif ...more

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